SMuK 2023 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 120: Cosmic Ray V

T 120.6: Talk

Thursday, March 23, 2023, 17:05–17:20, POT/0013

Fixed-target π^± C interactions at GeV energies simulated with PYTHIA8* — •Chloé Gaudu — Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Gaußstraße 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany

Understanding the properties of extensive air showers (EAS) is of prime importance for extracting the properties of ultra high-energy cosmic rays from data, such as collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory. Inferring their primary energy and, most importantly, their primary mass relies on detailed comparisons of EAS measurements with corresponding air shower simulations. The largest uncertainties in such simulations are caused by limited knowledge of hadronic interactions at high energies. To assess the effect of such uncertainties, different hadronic interactions are applied in EAS simulations, each of them being tuned to accelerator data. PYTHIA8 is a hadronic interaction model that is frequently used in the context of LHC experiments and is well suited to be tuned to accelerator data, but up to now has only rarely been used in EAS simulations. This contribution focuses on studying the production cross-sections and p_T-integrated particle spectra from charged pion-carbon fixed-target collisions at momenta between 3 and 350 GeV/c and comparing them against the newest version of the hadronic interaction model PYTHIA8. Three distinct datasets from the HARP, HARP-CDP, and NA61/SHINE collaborations are used for this purpose. The validity of the model to describe the experimental datasets is investigated using the RIVET interface. We discuss the results of this comparison as well as the effects to the uncertainties of EAS simulations. *Supported by DFG (SFB 1491).